Mercury Rising ** (1998, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin) – Classic Movie Review 1505

Director Harold Becker’s 1998 thriller stars Bruce Willis as a caring FBI agent called Art Jeffries, who tries to save a nine-year-old autistic boy, Simon Lynch (Miko Hughes), from the clutches of Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Kudrow (Alec Baldwin)’s National Security Agency killers. They have murdered his parents and are out to kill him too. The little boy is the Rain Man kind of autistic savant who can crack the US secret code that protects all its agents.

The 70-year-old director Becker’s expert touch largely deserts him in this mostly bungled thriller, as scene after tedious scene is mishandled. But there’s nothing much anyone could do with this threadbare ragbag of thriller clichés so ancient you though you’d never see in them again in a major movie. The kid is OK, though he looks as though he’s in training for Omen 5, Baldwin smirks viciously to little avail, and Kim Dickens provides the wan love interest.

The engaging Bruce Willis is Bruce Willis, pretty much as always, but looking a little older without the toupée and with more flesh on his face. He works hard as always to make you care about this botched thriller, and he establishes a good, credible relationship with the kid, but there’s only so much that he can do to elevate it.

This is an uncomfortable use of autism. You can see how insensitive this here is when you know that Ryne Douglas Pearson’s source novel was called Simple Simon.

Becker is known for Taps (1991), Sea of Love (1989) and City Hall (1996).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1505

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